New Images from THE WALKING DEAD Season 3; Plus Showrunner Glen Mazzara Talks The Governor and Keeping the Show Scary

The third season of The Walking Dead is drawing near, and fans are starting to get an idea of what’s in store for everyone’s favorite inept zombie apocalypse survivors. Last week two new teaser trailers landed online, and today we’ve got a batch of new images and some quotes from showrunner Glen Mazzara about the new season. We last saw our crew of survivors in an extremely precarious situation, and these images promise plenty of human-on-zombie violence when the show returns. Furthermore, we get a better look at new characters The Governor (David Morrissey) and Michonne (Dania Gurira).

Hit the jump to check out the images and to see what Mazzara has to say about the upcoming episodes.

Speaking with AMC, Mazzara talked about the key to keeping the show scary in its third season:

“The number one rule is not so much keeping the zombies scary, it’s keeping the show scary. [The zombies] are always a horror but as our folks learn to live with them, the new horror becomes what people will do to survive and to protect each other in this world. And what they’re willing to sacrifice to achieve their ambition. So it’s very much a human drama, and I think these new characters, particularly The Governor, certainly do play into that.”

The showrunner also talked about how the “Ricktatorship” will pan out in this season, following Rick’s aggressive “I’m putting my foot down” hissyfit in the season two finale:

“Rick’s reign is initially successful in the fact that they do discover this prison and that proves at first that Rick was right that there’s a place out there that perhaps they can be safe. The question becomes how far can he push the group? What is the breaking point? And Rick will certainly have to deal with how far can he push himself and what is his breaking point.”

The Governor, a fan-favorite character from Robert Kirkman’s graphic novel series, makes his debut in season three. Mazzara talked about balancing the character’s humanity with his villainy in order to make him a three-dimensional antagonist:

“Part of the attraction of The Walking Dead for our fans is that it feels real, and that means that The Governor has to feel real. He needs to be a person who has a real soul and has a depth and intelligence, and he’s not just a cardboard arch-villain who’s going to play as a foil to our characters. I think David Morrissey is doing a phenomenal job finding the humanity in that character and by having that humanity so prevalent when he commits atrocious acts, I think they’ll be that much more horrifying.”

Check out the rest of the new images below, via AMC, and tune into the season three premiere of The Walking Dead on Sunday, October 14th.